A Portuguese Patchwork

Having been a bit on-and-off posting to An Tor Orth An Mor over the past few weeks (due to one reason or another that has kept me away from my computer on a Sunday evening) I thought I'd take it back to some straight old, surf based, travel photography.  I was lucky enough to visit Portugal again for a few days at the end of October, and my trip coincided with the arrival of the mega-swell generated by the St Judes storm.  The images that I shot of enormous waves towering over the cliff-top lighthouse at Nazare (shortly after Carlos Burle rode a potentially record-breaking wave there) will hopefully be appearing in print at some point soon so I can't showcase them just yet.  Instead, here are some of the images that I took on the couple of days before and after whilst travelling up and down the coast between Porto and Lisbon from our base on the little island of Baleal, with just the one teaser of the swell smashing the coast at Peniche as the sun came up on that famous Monday morning.

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Patagonia London Exhibition

From Portugal I travelled to London where a selection of my surf and travel photography is now hanging on the wall downstairs in the Patagonia store in Covent Garden, alongside the heritage collection and their winter 2014 wetsuits.  I'm truly honoured to be exhibiting my work on the walls of Patagonia's flagship store in the UK and to be associated, albeit in a very minor way, with such an inspirational company.  If you live and work in the big city or are up there Christmas Shopping then please visit the store on Langley Street in Covent Garden and whilst you're there head downstairs to check it out.  Unlike in the photo above I won't be sat there awkwardly cluttering up the place. 

The Train To Taghazoute and The Storyboard Go Live...

Gare du Nord - departure board possibilities...

It's been a busy week here; an article that I put together for Drift surf magazine has been published, to my despair hot on the heels of great articles featuring the photography of two of my favourite image makers Chris Burkard and Dane Peterson (talk about big shoes to fill), and The Storyboard exhibition opened in Polzeath, Cornwall.

The sights, sounds and smells of the souks, Marrakech.

First up, the article: Back in April my friend Kyle and I set off on the train aiming for Morocco, lugging our boardbags with us and hoping for the best. I had a couple of cameras with me and the trip became more than just a mission for waves, with a mountain climbed, some cities explored and a few arguments with Spanish railway officials along the way. We got good good waves, but that's not the point.

Drift have been as encouraging and supportive as ever and have put it out there for people to see so please click any of these jumps to see The Train To Taghazoute in full. I'd also like to push out a big thanks to the team at Finisterre for their encouragement and for keeping us warm when it was cold, and cool when it was hot.

Then on Friday night James Otter and I spent a lot longer than anticipated carefully hanging our Storyboard exhibition in the Tubestation in Polzeath, Cornwall. We finished up at midnight surrounded by pizza boxes and an assortment of tape measures and hanging wire but we're really pleased with the results. The Storyboard is being exhibited "open" alongside two finished surfboards and a set of twelve images documenting the process, all framed in timber from the same tree as the surfboard.

James starting to carefully shape the rails of The Storyboard.

The Storyboard is for sale (it will be fully finished and ready to surf, including in the package the entire set of framed images for a total of £2995), as are framed or mounted prints (£75 and £25) and signed and numbered handmade coffee table books (£25).

If you're interested in the board, prints or book then leave a comment on this post at the bottom with your contact details and I'll get in touch, or hit up James through his website.

The board really is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and we believe that the "one tree" lifecycle angle makes this an exhibition worth making a detour for. If you do get a chance to eyeball it any time over the next six weeks, please let me know what you thought.

I love it when a plan comes together.

6'10" Mini-Magic against the workshop wall.

The Storyboard

I've been sitting on this project for a good while now, dying to shout about it, and now at long last I'm allowed to leak out a few images and let you in on it: For the past 9 months a friend and I have been working on a wooden surfboard project called 'The Storyboard' which goes live next Saturday, September 17th, and we're both really excited about it as what started out as a small seed of an idea has grown into a multi-faceted project incorporating an exhibition, a book and a magazine article.

The tools of his trade; James shaping the nose of The Storyboard.

James Otter designs and builds beautiful bespoke wooden skin and frame surfboards here in Cornwall, in a workshop on the most photogenic smallholding above Porthtowan beach.

We've documented the lifecycle of one of these surfboards, using timber from just a single Western Red Cedar tree, all the way from the woodland in Cornwall where the tree was felled, through the sawmill and then every single step of the making process. Ordinarily this style of wooden surfboard uses a variety of hardwoods wrapped around a plywood frame but due to the "one tree" principle James even made his own plywood from the same planks that were then used to make the rest of the board, going as far as producing the frames for the exhibition from the leftovers and offcuts.

The internal framework of the surfboard is being left exposed (displayed without the deck) to reveal a poem which has been engraved onto the plywood ribs that traces the lifecycle of the timber from tree to sea, from the moment it crashed to the ground to the moment it will splash in the waves.

It took many hours of painstaking craftsmanship to get to this skeletal stage.

The Storyboard will be displayed alongside a photographic exhibition that documents the entire build process, and accompanied by a small coffee table book, from September 17th through until the end of October at the Tubestation and Zeath Gallery in Polzeath, North Cornwall, UK.

You're all welcome to come along to the launch party on September 17th from 3pm for tea, cake and wooden surfboards, and then another event is planned to coincide with the Jesus Longboard Classic being held in Polzeath over the weekend of October 15th and 16th, where James will also have some demonstration boards available for people to paddle out for a wave on. Or just stop by anytime over the six weeks to get your eyes on it.

The Surfer's Path has an interview with James in the latest issue, which to my great surprise ran with one of my images.

The Stories of Scars

We've all got scars; even the most precious princesses have marks on their knees from falling over as kids, it's just that some of us carry a few more than others. And they all tell stories.

I was listening to one of the brilliant Dirtbag Diaries podcasts a few weeks back and it was all about scars. As I drove down the coast road to work with it playing through my earphones I started to take note of the backs of my hands and wrists - right in front of my eyes on the steering wheel: A long white line across the back of my right hand from a run-in with a grill (I once tried telling somebody that I got scratched by a tiger at the zoo), a thin slice down one finger from an Indonesian reef, three gnarled knuckles thanks to the bricks at Jeffreys Bay, the tip of a finger sliced around removing aluminium swarf from a lathe and countless chill-blain puckerings from surf coaching under a hot sun in a cold ocean. No particularly remarkable or unusual ones really, everybody'll have their own versions. Some people I know have scars that define them, with full-on stories to go with them that they're continually having to tell to curious new acquaintances.

I bring this up not because of any sort of machismo, I don't want to start a pissing contest comparing scars (I wouldn't do so well if I did). But I like the fact that they all have stories, and I love the constant reminder of how incredible our bodies are at repairing themselves.

Tattoos can be bought and I'm all for art on skin but most tattoos don't carry the same stories that scars do. You don't choose your scars or where they go but they're there for the duration all the same. In Indonesia the brown scars that surfers gain from brushes with the sharp coral reef and subsequent cleaning with iodine are nicknamed "Kerrang tattoos" after the Bahasa Indonesian for coral.

Cut deep enough and some serious repair is required. Blood clots and fibroblast sets to work, synthesising collagen fibres which cross link (rather than align as it does in the rest of our skin) and when the scab falls away after 3-4 weeks we have a fresh patch of skin. But not proper skin...just a patch up job which won't grow hair or sweat, and won't stretch to accomodate our growing bodies.

A reminder not to do that again because it hurt.

A battle badge.

Have a look at the backs of your hands, or your knees, elbows, anywhere. Take a look at some of those marks and recall how you got them. Some may have painful memories attached, but I'll bet that a few take you back to a good time or place and a pretty good story.

Top Image: Matt's a climber, and his knuckles have bore the consequences. Shot in Southern Spain, February 2011 on a climbing trip with his brother Sam Wheadon who's a pro-shutterbug.

Bottom Image: My shoes by me, but they don't look like this any more...years of walking barefoot, rock hopping and reef scrapes have resulted in some lasting marks but I wouldn't have it any other way.

P.S.

If you're passing through Falmouth, Cornwall, over April then swing by the fantastic JAM records coffee shop and record store. Sip a latte, flick through the incredible music in the racks, and cast your eyes over all the photography that I've thrown up on their wall. It'll be up until the end of April.

Busy Bee-ness

Look who's been a busy bee...

My workbench down in the pit. Various picture frames made from reclaimed oak floorboards, salvaged iroko from old school science desks, plywood off-cuts and some leftover ash from my current big-build project. Waste not want not.

The blank canvas.

Hang time.

Because what I do to earn a living and what I actually do are many different things.

And I struggle to take myself seriously sometimes.

I try my best to use my time productively. These images are the result of a few of the things I've been working on through 2011 so far, in between making the most of the good waves we've been getting here in Cornwall. Fingers crossed I can keep the momentum going and this'll just be the start. There're a few exhibitions in the pipeline, www.matarney.com is due an update, I've got some interesting trips planned, some stories half written and there's a pretty ambitious build project going on down in the pit which I'll lift the lid on fairly soon. Keep 'em peeled hey.

P.S. The business cards are 18% grey on purpose, so all you shutter-bugs can light-meter off them if you need to. For digi-clickers, it's the tone that the processor in your camera takes as average and works out all of the other colours from. Now you know.

Philly

If, by some twist of fate, any of you happen to be in or around Philadelphia over the coming weeks or months(?) then swing by the Sedso Design Group Gallery where a few of my images are being displayed as part of the "Place Your Art Here" show. It opened last night, and I missed out on the arty boozing and schmoozing for exhibitors because it's a long way to go from Cornwall...

Or check out the gallery on the website...
http://www.placeyourarthere.com
Sedso Design Group Gallery - Space 75 at The Piazza1050 North Hancock Street, Philadelphia,
Pa 19146